


Visiting Hour

by cafekusanagi (RangerDew)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon, Probably., post-something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 18:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30025725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RangerDew/pseuds/cafekusanagi
Summary: Yusaku pays the Hanoi a visit.
Relationships: Kngihts of Hanoi & Revolver | Kougami Ryouken, implied Fujiki Yuusaku/Revolver | Kougami Ryouken (unrequited)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Visiting Hour

**Author's Note:**

> uploading this while my aiball week fic is still not completed is a bold move i know. however this fic means a lot to me; i wrote it while i was watching vrains and my emotions and thoughts were high and its honestly one of the only things ive written because the lines kept echoeing in my head and i had to write them down. looking back i shouldve written more back then but i love this fic a lot for what it represents to me. enjoy?

“...Are you really alright with this?”

Baira barely looks up from her small and yellowed book. She turns a page. Even in prison, she is proud, her head tilted elegantly, her eyes unmoved from her book. “I’ve made my decision long ago. The least I can do is atone with Ryoken.”

It never bothered Yusaku before, but now, after everything, the name sounds tender and foreign. “You stopped calling him Revolver.” 

Her hands come to a rest on the book before she turns a page. “Everything is over now. Before he was a leader to me, he was a son.” She folds a dog ear in her book and puts it back on her cot. “I’ll follow him anywhere. The Knights of Hanoi are all I have left.” 

It’s a small piece of information,  _ a son _ , but it lights a fire in Yusaku’s soul. He wants to know just a bit more. “...A son?”

She sighs. “It’s been a while,” she says, “but Faust, Genome, and I basically raised him.”

He can’t stop what he says next. “Then are you really alright with him being in prison?”

Baira is silent for a long, long, while. Yusaku almost worries that she’s offended her, even after everything, until she responds. There’s a strain to it; “There’s nowhere else he can be.”

\--

“...How’s prison?”

Spectre dips his head, haughtily, subtly, in the way he always does. “What a strange question,” he says, slow on his tongue. “I would have thought it obvious for someone like you. Prison is, as expected, mind-numbingly boring.”

It utterly perplexes Yusaku. The words leave him before he can stop them. It seems to be a theme today. “Then why not escape?”

“Oh? Are you offering?” Before Yusaku can answer, he laughs, an arrogant, peaceful smile of sorts gracing his face. “I won’t. No matter how boring, it’s my choice to stay by Revolver- _ sama _ ’s side.”

“...But are you really okay with this?”  _ Spectre calls him Revolver.  _

“Is this a kind of compulsion to clear your conscience?” Spectre furrows his brows. “If I’m okay with it, would it make everything better? Doesn’t the fact that I’m even here bother you?” 

“...Of course it does…”

Spectre shrugs. “Some things can’t be helped, Playmaker,” he says, and a shiver goes down Yusaku’s spine. He hopes the cameras here don’t record audio as well. “We made our decision. Whether or not you can rest with it… well. It’s beyond our control.”

Yusaku just stands there, mulling his mind for options. He’s not even entirely sure what he’s looking for.

“Besides, I’d rather you not waste your time here with us. Shouldn’t you be mourning?”

Yusaku’s vision blanks for a second before he wills himself back. Spectre seems to notice how shaken up he is at the mention. A moment passes, and suddenly he shifts a little. Out of Yusaku’s periphery, he can see a guard walking down the hall. 

“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Spectre’s words sound as graceful on his tongue as ever, “it’s my allotted time to the library. I’ll take my leave.”

\--

“...”

Faust doesn’t even respond to Yusaku’s presence. He barely looks up from the Sudoku puzzle on his lap, his hand resting calmly on his chin.

So, Yusaku is forced to speak. “...Faust,” he says.

Faust does not respond, his eyes still glued to the Sudoku puzzle.

Yusaku feels a flare of panic and irritation. Faust definitely sees him standing here, right? “...Fau-”

“Playmaker,” Faust says. “If you’re here to visit, please leave. I have nothing to say to you.”

Yes, it’s panic, definitely panic now. “What?” Yusaku hopes his voice doesn’t sound as small as he feels he is.

Faust barely reacts. “We were never close,” he says. “If you’re here to clear your conscience, no need. We’re guilty as judged. And if you’re here to thank me for saving Kusanagi,” he fills in a number on the Sudoku, “you’re welcome.”

Yusaku, once more, speaks before he thinks. “Th-- that’s not--” 

“Then what is this about?” Faust finally turns to look at him, and when his eyes fall on Yusaku, god, that’s terrifying. “I’m sure I’m not the only one you’re here to see. If I’m just one stop among the others, then like I said, no need. Besides,” his eyes turn a bit guilty, “save yourself the pain. I’m one of the ones directly involved in the Lost Incident.”

Anger pierces Yusaku’s heart even as he desperately tries to quench it down. “That’s not-- it’s all over--” 

“Please leave, Yusaku,” Faust says, with a bit more force than usual.

As Faust had predicted, Yusaku indeed has nothing to say. And so, he leaves.

\--

“Oh? The great Playmaker is here to visit me?”

Genome is different from Faust. He’s different from all of them, actually, in that he has a sense of humor, and in that there’s always something more to life for him, a spark of thrill he always seeks rather than ignores. So, of course, Genome greeted him like so.

Yusaku can’t help be put off, though, by the phrase “the great Playmaker” and the obvious danger that lurks behind the wisecrack. “Genome,” he simply says, even though he’s certain he had wanted to say more.

Genome laughs. There are a bunch of scattered playing cards on his cot that he had been messing with, but he had stopped once Yusaku came near his cell. “Ah, this is nice,” he says. “Prison is so  _ boring _ . It’s nice to have an outside visit once in a while, though, I’ll admit, not many will be as interesting as you.”

Yusaku eyes the playing cards. He doesn’t know why, but he feels like playing it safe with conversation right now. “They’re giving you privileges.”

Genome’s eyes dart to the playing cards in realization, and then chuckles. “Upset?” He gathers some of them in a pile, and then into his hands. “I know, I know. Solitary confinement is the least I deserve, but boredom does wonders in breaking your resolve.”

“Um, that’s not what I meant.” Yusaku scratched his head. “I’m just glad, I guess. For everything, I’d expected they’d have you in dark, shut-in rooms all the time.”

Genome laughs. “Well, rest easy!” he says. “But prison is a deprivation nonetheless. Though I enjoy it more here than in a ‘dark, shut-in room’, I still can’t say I  _ enjoy  _ it.”

When he sees that Yusaku obviously doesn’t know how to respond to that, he chuckles once more. His hands have moved to shuffling the deck. “Well, no worries,” he says. “Solitaire does wonders for the mind.” Continues to shuffle. “If I’m correct, you’ll probably visit Revolver- _ sama  _ last.”

_ Revolver.  _

Chill down Yusaku’s back. A grin from Genome.

“Good luck, Playmaker. And I mean it.”

\--

Revolver’s cell is way, way, way in the back. Yusaku’s sure he had to go through at least five layers of security for him, and along the way they confiscated the pen Shima had loaned him. Yusaku really,  _ really  _ hopes they give it back to him, because it was some kind of limited edition Blue Angel thing and he was  _ certain  _ Shima was going to kill him if he didn’t give it back. 

Ah, but who is he kidding. What’s about to happen next is far more important. He’s stalling, in his mind and in his actions, and he knows it.

He passes the last checkpoint. The guard calls out ten minutes, and Yusaku walks into a dark, cold room, barely illuminated by an electrical panel of light above the middle of the room. A thick glass pane separates Yusaku and Ryoken’s small, barely-inhabited room.

And Ryoken is not looking at him. 

And just like that, Yusaku realizes that every word he wanted to say, every regret and apology and speech that had ever passed his mind has vanished.

_ Revolver,  _ in different tones, pass through his mind, but Baira’s clear and genuine  _ Ryoken  _ rolls off the tongue in his mind like waves.

There’s a steady, long, suffocating silence. And then, Ryoken huffs.

“Time is running out,” he says,  _ blunt as always.  _ “Why are you here?”

Yusaku’s brain short-circuits, or maybe it’s working too fast, words and emotions and thoughts and late-night cry sessions and letters written lovingly in his notebook never to be delivered, everything jumbles together all at once and it’s only after he says it that he realizes he said,

“I want to help you escape.”

Ryoken glances sideways to the door. “Well, this room is bugged to record sound, so you might want to scrap that plan.”

Yusaku’s stomach drops. He can’t think before he speaks today, he can’t think at  _ all,  _ what is wrong with his head--

“And I don’t want to escape. It’s my will to stay here for the rest of my life.”

And somehow, Yusaku’s stomach plummets even more and there’s a cold feeling in his chest, like his heart has been dunked in deep water.

“You can’t.” Ryoken’s eyes sharpen, and Yusaku reroutes. “You don’t deserve it.”

“And who is the judge of that?” Ryoken looks at Yusaku as if he were a persistent fly. “You?”

Yusaku shakes his head. “Everyone,” he gasps out, and hey, is he short of breath? When did breathing get so difficult? “You’ve saved us so many times. And…”

Ryoken sighs, weary and slow compared to everything Yusaku is currently feeling. “...And you’re going to say, ‘And I saved you’. Correct?”

“Playmaker, since this is the last time we’ll see each other, I’ll tell you.”

_ What? _

“I said I was not as good of a person as you thought I was,” he says, “and I don’t rescind that. ...and yet you cling to a version of me that has never existed.”

“...You saved me. I want to save you as well--”

“ _ I  _ never saved you!” There’s a snarl his tone that leaves Yusaku reeling. “And the person you’re saving won’t be the person you think you’re saving. I was never the person you conjured me up to be, Playmaker.”

With Baira, with Specter, with Faust, with Genome, Yusaku couldn’t respond. 

Ryoken, though… 

He had been in some of Yusaku’s earliest memories. He can’t imagine a life without him. 

“I may not completely know you,” Playmaker says, steadily, “but I know some things. You were eight at the time of the Lost Incident. You were the one who freed me and the others. And… you…” He licks his dry lips. “You’ve freed yourself from the past. You said it yourself.”

A long silence ensues. Playmaker doesn’t want to talk; he doesn’t want to make it worse, yet doesn’t know if it’s already bad. Revolver is still on his cot. Then, he huffs quietly.

“Even if I did get out, what would I do?” Revolver asks.

Yusaku desperately tries to think of the right thing to say.

“I’ve killed all the Ignis. I’ve fulfilled my father’s wishes. I’m glad what I said helped Soulburner, but the truth of the matter is that there simply isn’t a future I can see myself going towards.”

Yusaku’s brain is empty. 

Revolver is uncharacteristically quiet. Then, he sighs. “No responses, Playmaker?”

The door opens. “Ten minutes is up,” someone calls.

As they usher Yusaku away, he wills himself to imagine Revolver’s eyes might be on him as he leaves. 

He barely notices once he’s in the presence of fresh air and the smell of autumn. In the back of his mind, words play like a mantra, a jingle, a song;

_ Six bullets, six targets, six lives to make up for…  _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hey! if you've read this its worth looking into helping people who were unfairly prisoned/supporting prison abolition/writing or sending care packages to people in prison? 
> 
> https://innocenceproject.org/pervis-payne-wrongful-conviction-what-to-know-innocent-tennessee/ <\-- his execution was pushed back to april 9th but hes innocent and hes been on death row for 30 years . there are petitions to sign and you can write to the us department of justice (either to the pardon attorney, attorney, deputy attorney, other category, whatever) 
> 
> there are many more but i guess id like to call attention to this specific case. um i like writing fics with people in prison as much as the next person but i think its important to examine the reality of how prisons disproportionately incarcerate black and brown people and are like immoral. prison abolition is important and i hope this inspires whoevers reading to do their own research! if any of you know angela davis she has a book on it: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Are_Prisons_Obsolete/_wZ35GI4itgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover


End file.
